SAN FRANCISCO -- One team’s absolutely the best in Major League Baseball.
The other is the Pirates.
One team sent the majors’ ERA leader to the mound.
The other sent Wil Crowe.
One team wrote out a lineup loaded with the majors’ most home runs.
The other had .204-hitting Gregory Polanco at cleanup, as well as .207-hitting Kevin Newman and .156-don't-call-this-hitting Michael Perez.
So how, pray tell, could any sane person characterize the Pirates’ 10-2, three-hour thrashing of the Giants on this Saturday night at Oracle Park, one that sets the stage for their first series sweep all season, as anything less than a spectacular surprise?
How to explain Polanco blowing up with a two-run bomb, plus an RBI single? Or Newman coming through with four hits, plus a lineout that was stung harder than any of those? Or Perez covering all 270 feet of an RBI triple, plus another hit? Or, for that matter, Crowe badly outdueling Cy Young candidate Kevin Gausman with a career-high nine Ks?
It’s simple, really …
"It's felt like it's been coming," Newman would say afterward. "I felt that we'd been doing some good things for a while now, so yeah, it was time for those runs to get cashed in. That was a good feeling for all of us."
“This kind of game, like we played today, will give us confidence to see how good we are," Polanco essentially echoed. "We have to stay like that every day: Fight, fight. You see, we have so much talent here, young guys ... so you have to stay in the fight every day."
All right, “so much talent” doesn’t pass the sniff test, much less the math test. I’ll remind that it’s the Giants who are 61-37 and the Pirates holding up the cracked mirror at 38-60. That’s not an accident. And neither was that stomach-turning sweep in Phoenix earlier this same week. Baseball isn't built on bite-sized samples.
At the same time, it doesn’t take much digging to find support for El Coffee's perky sentiment. Because this really hasn't burst out of the blue:
• For July, the Pirates are No. 1 in the majors with a .284 batting average. Oh, for real. And the next two teams aren't all that close, with the Nationals at .275 and the Angels at .270. The 16 hits on this night didn't hurt, obviously, but before arriving in the Bay, they'd just become baseball's first team since 2019 to have double-digit hit totals in seven consecutive games.
• Crowe's nine Ks were part of a staff-wide 12-K output. The previous night, the Pirates' pitchers fanned a season-high 14 Giants, and they've now fanned 10 or more in four consecutive games.
• This doesn't get emphasized enough, but the defense has become superlative. The Pirates have the fewest errors in the majors since May 9, with only 24 spanning 66 games, and their .986 fielding percentage for the full season is fifth-best in the majors.
All of the above was on display here, actually, and it's been on display for a while, but maybe it's been buried by the three dud outcomes against the Diamondbacks. That's how sports go. If the final score isn't right, not much else gets noticed. Same goes for the standings, though it's worth underscoring that they're 9-7 since the Fourth of July, and every win came against a contender, with four over the Mets, two over the Braves, and now these two.
What’s it all mean?
Well, as with everything related to these 2021 Pirates still in the embryonic stage of Ben Cherington's Big Build, it’s a little layered. Some achievements, like whatever comes from Bryan Reynolds and Ke'Bryan Hayes, mean more than others because they could count toward a promising future. Others, like whatever comes from Tyler Anderson or Richard Rodriguez, count more toward potential trade value in the coming week. Others, like the growing legend of John Nogowski, don't mean a blessed thing.
But let's at least take it this far: They’re getting better.
Anyone remember Derek Shelton's only stated goal going into spring training?
Yep. It was "get better," seldom anything more specific, and it was supported by Cherington. Just take whatever's here -- or whatever arrives by whatever route -- and make it better.
So far, Reynolds and Adam Frazier, the chief hitting challenges, didn't just become better. They became All-Stars, and that's a credit to all concerned. But Mitch Keller was arguably more important than anyone to make better, and he got way worse, only to get better in Indianapolis, and we'll see what that means once he's back. Same goes for Newman, whose defense has elevated into exceptional but whose contact at the plate is softer than ever.
It's something of a mixed review, but more good than bad.
I asked Shelton a couple questions after this game about Newman's defense and offense.
First, it was about this elegant example of footwork in the eighth ...
... to which Shelton responded, "It was not an easy play. It was not an easy play at all. The way he’s moving his feet this year is so much better. He’s played well defensively all year long, obviously, but tonight we really played well in the middle."
Right, because there was this, too, from Frazier in the sixth:
Man. Talk about defense.
But I digress to Newman's offense, which comes with an uncomfortable contrast between his low exit velocity and being the majors' hardest batter to strike out. So I asked Shelton if there's maybe more there.
"I think Kevin continues to get better," he responded. "He’s been better for the last month. He got through a stretch early in the year where he didn’t take as aggressive of swings as we would've liked. We’ve challenged him on some things there, and he’s done a better job since then."
Eh. I'm not seeing that, but OK.
Regardless, to repeat, there's been more to like than to dislike of late. And there can't be any debate that this team's better than the mercifully cut-short 2020 team. All circumstances aside, consider the alternative.
THE GAME
• My goodness, did Polanco murder this ball in the third:
That was 94.5 mph in, 106.2 mph out. With scarcely an arc.
I'll defer to the man himself to describe it: “I’m not going to lie. At first, when I hit it, I knew I hit it great. I was like, 'Oh, I got it.' "
At which point he remembered that there was a 415-foot sign at the far end.
"I saw it was going to the deepest part of the ballpark, so I’ve got to run. So I started running. When I saw where it was going, I started running because I didn’t hit it like that high. It was a line drive. When I got it, I was like, 'Yes, I got it.' ”
Big smile for the big man there.
• He's 7 for his past 22, by the way, with two home runs, a triple and six RBIs, and he credits that to choking up a bit after reviewing film during the All-Star break from his torrid 2017 and 2018 second halves.
"I'm more in control now," he'd add.
• I haven't appreciated much about Crowe in his first year with the Pirates, but he showed something here by doing little more than burying his four-seamer under bats. Again and again, he pounded low, and the Giants visibly had no counter.
Check out his nine strikeout pitches:
"Quick outs, get ahead, get ahead of guys and get ‘em out," Crowe came back when I brought this up. "That’s what I was going for. I felt pretty good. After two innings, I knew I had really good stuff."
He'd log 5 1/3 innings, two runs, four hits and one walk against those nine Ks. Best I've seen him.
• Gausman, his illustrious counterpart, was a comparative wreck, logging 4 1/3 innings, six runs, eight hits, and four walks against two Ks.
"Really frustrating," Gausman called his second blah start in a row.
• That was the Giants' general tune, as one might imagine. It's no fun losing to the Pirates, much less like this. And twice in a row. And at home.
“I don’t think we have executed any part of our game over the last two days," Gabe Kapler, San Francisco's manager, would say. "So I think the move is to demonstrate a bit of urgency, but also without any panic. We don’t have any panic in that room. It’s two games that were not good baseball games from any angle.”
Hm. I'd check with the other team on that front.
GETTY
The Giants' Steven Duggar can't catch a Bryan Reynolds double in the third inning Saturday night at Oracle Park.
THE REST
• JT Brubaker, who'll take the mound in the series finale Sunday, has given up 15 runs and six home runs in his past three starts, and that might not be a coincidence.
I raised this with Shelton and, while he blamed the recent dropoff "execution," he also acknowledged that Brubaker will soon have his usage curtailed. Brubaker missed the 2019 season to injury, and everyone had their 2020 shortened, so his ramp-up is "reaching some innings limits and pitches limits that we’re going to have to start working through that moving forward."
Shelton didn't specify what that might mean, other than that starts might be shorter.
• Turns out Kyle Crick was placed on release waivers rather than outright waivers, a source told our Alex Stumpf. Crick cleared regular waivers after being designated for assignment Monday, and that'll be that. I can add on my own that Crick wasn't the most beloved member of the clubhouse and that this played a part.
• Had a really good talk with Hayes in the dugout before the game. I'll share some of that in the Sunday column, but suffice it to say for now it's been a joy getting to do the job the right away again, getting to know these people I cover ... as people. It makes a world of difference, and it's made this trip deeply satisfying on a professional and personal level.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Adam Frazier, 2B
2. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
3. Bryan Reynolds, CF
4. Gregory Polanco, RF
5. John Nogowski, 1B
6. Ben Gamel, LF
7. Kevin Newman, SS
8. Michael Perez, C
9. Wil Crowe, RHP
And for Gabe Kapler's Giants:
1. LaMonte Wade Jr., 1B
2. Mike Yastrzemski, RF
3. Buster Posey, C
4. Alex Dickerson, LF
5. Wilmer Flores, 2B
6. Jason Vosler, 3B
7. Thairo Estrada, SS
8. Steven Duggar, CF
9. Kevin Gausman, RHP
THE SCHEDULE
One more out here. Seventh chance at finally recording a series sweep. The Sunday finale, at 4:05 p.m. Eastern, has Brubaker (4-9, 4.68) facing lefty Alex Wood (8-3, 3.77). After that, it's back home for three with yet another first-place team, the Brewers, beginning Tuesday.
IN THE SYSTEM
• Indianapolis
• Altoona
• Greensboro
• Bradenton
THE CONTENT
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